...is to plan to fail. And I am out of my month-long blogless torpor to comment on a particularly epic fail by Planned Parenthood Northwest. Here's what I just emailed them:
Dear Planned Parenthood Northwest,
I'm pretty disappointed in you at the moment. I got right up on Facebook and supported PP when the Susan G. Komen folks did their reprehensible thing. I have been speaking out for access to contraception and women's health without interference from religious and political nuts. And then you go and say this in your press release:
"Alaska should not be the place for the next frontier on the national war on women. As a state, we need to focus on continued revenue generation, addressing critical health care issues like obesity, children’s health care, and suicide, and ensuring that all Alaskans are afforded the rights put in place by our constitution regardless of their socioeconomic status."
I would venture to say that Alaska should also not be the place for a war on fat people. And I'm deeply offended that you consider obesity to be on some sort of par with suicide as a "critical health care issue" that needs to be addressed. I am a very fat, active, socially engaged woman whose life is full and happy. My health is good, and I take good care of my mind and my body because I value them. If you are interested in people's health, and not their pants size, I suggest that you turn your focus toward access to the following: joyful, accepting physical activity, nutritious food, eliminating stigma due to physical difference, and providing people of every size, shape, color, age, and income level with decent health care.
If you would like to learn more about Health at Every Size, please contact me or just go to http://www.lindabacon.org/haes.html.
Let's continue to support each other, huh?
Sincerely,
Jayne Williams
Sacramento, CA
If you feel the need for a little activism along these lines, email PP Northwest here: ppaction@ppvotesnw.org.
Well, I see that this post sparked a flurry of... nothing. Happily, though, the activism worked - PPNW has changed the language in their piece and removed "obesity" as one of their focal points.
ReplyDeleteJust found your blog; a friend loaned me Slow Fat Triathlete and I'm loving it as a newbie slow fat triathlete myself. Thanks for the interesting post; followed the links on Linda Bacon's site to the NYT piece "Losing the weight stigma" from Oct 08, which, ironically, had a google ad for gastric bypass.
ReplyDeleteWish I had seen this when you wrote it as you were absolutely right and I would have also chimed in. Found your blog through a series of links here and there so I can't even tell you the path but I love it and adore you and REALLY hope you will continue to write and share your fitness goings ons. I can very much relate and I'm thrilled to find out there are other slow, fat athletes out there. Hooray!
ReplyDeleteAmazon recommended it to me when I was ordering a large size wetsuit for the swim leg of the tri I did with a relay team a few weeks back. Ah, amazon, you know me so well. So I checked the book out from my local library, but I didn't finish the book before I was leaving town for a week of a people-to-people diplomacy work in Cuba. Anyhow, I left the book in my hotel room when I checked out & when I asked a few days later (I had already finished it, but realized it wasn't in my luggage) it was gone. So your book is now somewhere in Cuba, probably being sold on the black market as it is difficult for them to get American books there. I hope it finds a good home & I hope some folks there get up and get moving too. C'est la vie! Now of course I've got a little debt to clear up at the library, but it'll be worth it.
ReplyDeleteLove you, love your book, love your blog. You are the GREATEST.
ReplyDelete